Paul Goble
Staunton, Oct. 10 – Many Russians and even more people in the West analyzed what was taking place at the end of Soviet times solely from the perspective of Moscow. As a result, they were surprised by what occurred in 1991. Tragically, there is a danger that this mistake is being repeated again, this time not for the former Soviet space as a whole but for Russia.
Happily, government officials and scholars in the West are now devoting more attention to the countries that emerged or re-emerged when the USSR came apart; but very much unhappily, the number of such people devoting their attention to what is going on beyond the Moscow ring road in the Russian Federation remains very small.
While there is perhaps growing interest in the non-Russian peoples within the borders of the Russian Federation given that many of their members have fled to the West and enjoy the support of Ukraine and some other countries, the nearly three-quarters of the population and the even larger share of that country consisting of predominantly Russian regions has been ignored.
Fortunately, in this darkness, there is a happy light; and it deserves all the support the international community both individually and collectively can give it. That is the Tallinn-based Region.Expert portal that has long been edited by Vadim Shtepa, an expert on these regions and someone those of us who follow them have come to depend.
In order to survive and grow, Shtepa has issued an appeal in both Russian and English for financial and institutional support to allow that portal to do even more, not only in covering these regions and their aspirations but in overcoming Western reluctance to focus on them fearful that such attention will destabilize things (region.expert/investment-memorandum/).
As Shtepa notes in his appeal, “the greatest source of global instability” is not such attention but rather “the preservation of the Kremlin’s empire itself, an empire that is not only waging a senseless full-scale war against Ukraine for five years and a hybrid war against Europe but also threatens the entire free world with nuclear weapons.”
And such threats will be compounded if the West is not prepared for what is coming inside Russia, developments that go a long way to explain why Putin is acting as he is but that he is in no position to preclude even if he can delay them for a time by being even more aggressive abroad and repressive at home.
As a constant reader of Region.Expert who has drawn on its insights for my Windows on Eurasia series over the years, I urge everyone concerned about the future of all the peoples now within or near the borders of the Russian Federation to respond to his appeal and support what Region.Expert has been doing and can do even more of in the future.
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